Not this f*cking year.

Drew: "Compare the monthly unemployment rate for Clinton's full term to that for Bush's full term. They are indistinguishable."

Compare job creation figures, or median wages and salaries. Clinton blow Bush out of the water.

WTF?

On a non-partisan note, you might enjoy this:

http://www.amazon.com/Conspiracy-Paper-Ballantine-Readers-Circle/dp/0804119120/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1230777535&sr=8-2

Times are bad, but they aren't that bad - at least not yet. But I am nervous about the next few months. You mentioned Wal-mart stock dropping 24%. Last I knew, they were one of a very few retailers whose sales gained slightly this year as well as the only stock on the DJIA which hadn't lost significant value. Perhaps you might post on the story behind this news?

Luckily, you don't even contribute the comic relief element that bitsy does...

Bye-bye.

If you want to defend Bush's record on the economy, have at it. The economy in shambles and deficits that defy the imagination... hell, you have good reason to be proud of your man.

At any rate its not as if anyone besides bithead takes you all that seriously :)

By the way, Clinton implemented/approved two very significant and positive economic policy initiatives during his term. (You see, reasonable and intellectually honest people can give credit where it is due, unlike your Pavlovian partisan rants.) However, one was absolutely antithetical to the commentary in your citation, and the second is still criticized by most Democrats.

Fascinating.

Now, back to your neanderthal grunting: Clinton gooooooood. Bush baaaaaaaad.......

If you want to dive into gory detail on jobs reporting, compensation etc you need to take into account things like the growing number of unreported self employed, the growth in comp through bennies as opposed to wages etc etc. You, and the column you site obviously have no appetite for real understanding, just partisan puffery.

For example, in the official statistics, yours truly is not even counted as employed (in fact, I would be accounted for as a job lost!) and yet I'm in the upper 1% of income earners. Damn that no good George Bush!! And there are many, many like me.

I also had to laugh out loud at some of the cause and effect descriptions in your citation, as if such fundamental trends ebbed and flowed in lock step with Presidential policies.

If you would like to elevate the discussion to something worthwhile, like overal economic performance during the 25 year period from Reagan to Bush, and the globalization policies that produced that performance, let me know.

If not, have fun continueing to polish that bust of Clinton in your living room.

Compare the monthly unemployment rate for Clinton's full term to that for Bush's full term. They are indistinguishable.

Perhaps, but the subject is job creation, and it is easy to see why you would want to change the subject when Bush's job creation record comes up.

# One of the most important measures of economic well-being is the number of people with jobs. The number of jobs in the economy increased 2.38 percent per year under Clinton, but it has decreased 0.17 percent per year under Bush.9 While it's clear that the economic downturn in 2001 was not Bush's fault, the sluggishness of the recovery is unprecedented in the period since the federal government began issuing detailed employment reports in the 1940s. There have been 1.7 million jobs created since September 2003, which may sound like a lot, but that number falls short of the 1.8 million jobs that must be created per year just to match population growth, and it falls far below the 3.7 million jobs that the administration predicted would be created when the president signed his 2003 tax cut into law.10 This slow job growth is largely attributable to both the failure of the administration's fiscal policies (which targeted tax cuts to stimulate savings rather than spending) and the failure of its trade policies (which have done a poor job of opening foreign markets to spur export growth, and have not created the conditions for an orderly decline in the value of the dollar, which would have helped ease the trade imbalance).11

# Full-time vs. Part-time Jobs12
The change in the number of jobs does not provide a complete picture of employment in the U.S. economy. Not only did the Clinton years produce many more jobs than the Bush years have, but they also produced more full-time jobs compared to part-time jobs. This is an important indicator because in an economic slowdown many displaced and new workers resort to part-time work as a second-choice option. Granted, some people might prefer part-time work because they have children or attend school. But, overall, a decrease in the ratio of full-time to part-time jobs implies that a greater share of workers have less stable work with fewer benefits. The ratio of full-time to part-time work rose under Clinton by 0.11 percent per year, but it has decreased at an annual rate of 1.67 percent since the beginning of 2001. In fact, the ratio of full-time to part-time jobs has not only reversed direction, but as of September 2004 it has fallen below what it was before Clinton took office.

http://www.ppionline.org/ndol/print.cfm?contentid=252964

Compare the monthly unemployment rate for Clinton's full term to that for Bush's full term. They are indistinguishable.

Of course, Clinton's term was an "economic miracle." And Bush's was "tough economic times."

At least according to the major media........and the sheep who unquestioningly follow them.

Of course a like, or greater number, are created.

Unless, of course, Bush happens to be President.